It's the Journey...: 2007

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Cindy's 30th Birthday Surprise Party/ Baby #2 Shower!!

I was completely surprised to find out that a "Girl's Lunch" really was a way to get all of the girls together to celebrate my 30th birthday and the upcoming baby. Sonja was so nice to plan all of this for me since all of the family was out for Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a yummy lunch and cake at the North Carolina's Museum of Art's restaurant. They guys took care of the kids for the afternoon and so we took advantage and viewed the great Impressionism art display. What a fun day that I had no idea about! :)

Thanksgiving Day!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner after lots of effort and fun! There were 17 of us and we had the usual fixings along with some delicious desserts thanks to Sonja and Frank! We all had a great time playing with the kids and watching movies too.

Granny's Birthday!

The day before Thanksgiving was Caryl's birthday! What fun to be able to celebrate with everyone! We had North Carolina barbeque dinner and birthday cake and gifts. It was a great night.

Dinner at Frank and Sonja's

On a night before Thanksgiving, we all went over to Cousins Frank and Sonja's house for a yummy family dinner. It is always fun to walk around the lake by their house and they kids and boys had a great time playing guitars and percussion!

Marbles Museum

During the week, Marcie, Julius and Pancho took the kids to Marbles Museum to meet up with Cousins Frank and Sonja. They had a great time dressing up, building lego towers that they could go inside of, enjoying water play and so much more. It was great entertainment while we were all busy cooking Thanksgiving dinner!

Thanksgiving Week!

Thanksgiving week was so much fun around here because we had a house full of family visiting! I decided to cook a bunch of food for everyone including my favorite meal of the day, breakfast! I love to make breakfast treats probably because they are so sweet and good! One of the first days that everyone was here, Caryl and I spent 5.5 hours making homemade cinnamon rolls! Here is a photo marking our hard work. It was worth it, they were so yummy!

Hanging out with Daddy!

The week before Thanksgiving Ayden and Daddy were playing on a Saturday. Ayden thought it was so neat that Daddy had a real stethoscope too so he ran to go get his (toy one) and they took each other's pulse.

This is a twin picture of jeans and a blue sweatshirt. I found a navy blue zip up sweatshirt for Ayden just like Pancho's favorite one that he wears. They then went out to ride bikes. :)

25 weeks!

Ayden decided to pose with me in this one! He is trying to put his hand on his hip like I am. :)
I am 6 months already, can't believe it! Feeling good and haven't blown up like a blimp yet. :)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Ayden's going to have a baby...

BROTHER! We found out on Thursday that we are going to be a house full of Boys!! We had an ultrasound and the baby looks healthy, thank God!

19 Weeks!

Finally, I got around to taking some pregnant photos of Baby #2! I guess it is more fun for me to take them when I am actually showing, which seemed to take longer this time!

Halloween continues...

After Halloween, we went and bought some on sale costumes since Ayden has a lot of fun with dress up these days! We bought a Buzz Lightyear and a Doctor costume and he has not grown tired of them yet!

Here is the new house decorated for the Fall. You can't see it too well, but there is a hay barrel with a bunch of pumpkins and some pumpkin lights too. :)

Ayden's Preschool Halloween Parade & Party!

Here is his whole class getting ready to parade around the school!

Here is the party! They all had some yummy treats including some "Boo Bugs" that Mommy made. (these are like pigs in a blanket with little pretzel legs to look like little bugs!) It was a fun day at preschool! Ayden really enjoys it there.

Our Community Halloween Parade!

All the dressed up kids in the neighborhood paraded down the main road in our neighborhood.

Ayden was Curious George again this year because he now really loves the storybooks and doesn't remember last year anyhow!

All the kids ended the parade at the Residents Club for a Halloween party!

Ayden made a fun Halloween craft!

We all enjoyed this afternoon on the Saturday prior to Halloween. We didn't take any photos of trick or treating, but Ayden had fun on Wednesday night with his first trick or treating experience. His favorite part? The candy of course!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Visiting the Gjovigs in Arkansas!!

What a fun trip visiting the Gjovig family in their new home in Bentonville, AR in mid October! We had missed them so much since late June, it was so great to catch up in person and meet the newest little addition, Kiana!! She couldn't be any cuter as you can see in the photo above! Ayden and Elijah were so excited to see each other, they had all kinds of fun together at music class, taking some friend photos at JC Penney's together, going to the mall playground, playing at the park. They had their "sibling rivalry" moments, but such is the life of two 2 year olds who used to often spend everyday together! :) All in all, they had so many fun moments together and their two moms had a great time as well! It couldn't have been more fun to catch up and spend time with them all!

They say the cutest things...

10.09 - Teacher at preschool: "Ayden, where are you from? (during Celebrating Cultures Week at preschool)

Ayden: "I am half of a Puerto Rican!"

6.1.09 - Ayden over dinner tonight, "I love these Rolly Ollies!" (Ravioli's)

1.22.09 - Ayden: "Mom, upstairs I heard God talking in my heart!"

1.19.09 - Ayden: "I am a scientist at legos cause I have a creative brain to make them."

12.21.08 - Ayden: "I am a really good expert!"

"Israel is not in the United States, but it is still on the Earf (Earth)!"

"When baby Gabriel was born from your tummy...let's be grateful that God gave us a baby!"

6.6.08 - Ayden:"Spiderman and God have special powers...they can control the earth!"

I love how I have filled his head with the power of God! :) He (God) comes out in his thoughts as right up there with Spiderman. :)

5.13.08 - Conversations with Ayden:

Ayden: Mom, why is it cloudy out today?

Mom: Well, the sun is there, but it is behind the clouds.

Ayden: Oh, the sun is playing hide and seek!

5.7.08 - Ayden was getting ready for bed last night and he found his children's bible on the bathroom counter and recalled his "reading" from his nap/rest time that day. He said, "Jesus and God are our friends!" I said, "Yes, they are!" He proceeded to look at the cartoon photos on the front of the book and tried to guess who was Jesus. He pointed to Noah and said, "That is Jesus!" Then he pointed to Moses and said, "That is God!" I told him that God is not pictured there, that he is up in heaven. It did make me quite proud that he was reading his bible during rest time! :)

3.18.08 - Ayden and I were talking on the way to school and he was talking about where we were going and we had also just passed our church. He said, "Only I go to school and church." I said, "Well, Momma and Daddy go to church too, but we don't go to school anymore, we are all done with college, high school, grammer school and preschool." He replied with, "When I go to college, I can go to Stanford!" I laughed and said, "And when you graduate from Stanford, you can find a job like Daddy." He then said, "I can find a job at Stanford...I can do art or painting or stamps!"

This cracks me up, it is like a combination of what Daddy did (Stanford) and the things that Ayden and I do together (crafts, etc.)! I have to admit that we did feed him a line a few weeks ago about going to Stanford when he grows up! :)

2.27.08 - He also has been curious about more complex issues and concerning himself about the future. He said today, "When I am older, I will have hair on my cheek like Daddy." Another cute thought of his was, "Daddy has to work so that we can have toys, food and our house and other things." Of course he learns these things from us, but it is cute the way he processes them. :)

2.11.08 - I was putting Ayden to bed tonight after he read his books to me. He often does this because he memorizes how his favorite ones go and he reads them to himself or rather recites the sentences from memory. :) We were trying to quiet down, which is often difficult for Ayden to do (surprise, surprise!) and after sitting there for a few moments, he reminds me that we need to pray. I said, "Who do you want to pray for?" He said the usual folks and at the end, he said "And tank you for ebrebody in our wife (life)!" This is how he ends most nightly prayers.

Oh and by the way, Ayden went pee-pee on the potty all day today! Not just a small portion of the day. We are making slow progress!

2.6.08 - Ayden was helping me vacuum the stairs. He did the whole flight of them and when he got to the top, he said, "When you've got yuckies, you have to clean them up! Then you can have juice or water or somsing (something)."

It's the Journey...